Rat 41 CCM - AW a first attempt

[ThERat]

CCM is a real great mod and changes gameplay a lot in my opinion. For one, settlers and workers are auto produced which limits growth and expansion of both AI and the human.
There are no armies as well which changes warfare for AW especially.

We decided to give it a try on emperor difficulty and as CCM has to be played on huge maps, it will be huge continents with 31 Civs. We will start as the Romans as they are great for early warfare.

The Team:
ThERat
CommandoBob
Northern Pike
M60A3TTS
Elephantium (?)
vmxa

I will roll a start tonight and play some 20 turns to get us going. My plan is to found the capital, start with slavery wonder to get enslavers (I forgot whether Rome has WC as a starting tech), get the worker houses up in the second city and build some units there.
I will go for the wheel tech to get royal stables as soon as possible for the auto-produced chariots. We can then decide whether to head for IW and construction or for writing and literature (Great Library)

Any thoughts?

 

[Northern Pike]

That sounds fine. I can't add anything very specific, since the technical problem noted in the other thread has kept me from experimenting with starts as the Romans. I'll just suggest that getting an early foundation of culture established with immediate National Symbol builds (and soon our religious-community builds) will be at least as important as in normal CCM, since we can only expand by keeping conquered cities. Also, I feel that in CCM it's quite all right to wander a bit at the beginning with at least one of the settlers to get the best possible site(s).

 

[ThERat]

Important to note is that we need 3 temples before being able to build more specific culture related builds. I agree that building cheap culture builds such as Roman Flag etc is a must as well.

I plan not to settle too close to the first city as we want to use all possible tiles.

 

[vmxa]

I have not added this, but it has been reported:

"File not found
Art\Units\AMX-30\AMX-30.INI"

I found that what existed was AMX30\AMX30.INI, so I renamed them to AMX-30\AMX-30.INI and all is well now.

Civinator says it will be in the next round, so we need to do it in ours.

 

[ThERat]

Most errors have been cleaned up in 1.7 and I have not experienced any crashes except the missing settler issue with that last standing settler somewhere. Just save before eliminating the last city of a Civ and all should be fine. Works well for me.

Thanks vmxa for pointing that out, will edit the file too.

 

[Elephantium]

Checking in. I haven't played any CCM yet, so I can't really offer any thoughts on strategy.

 

[ThERat]

I played 20 turns to start us off.

This is our starting position. Note that we have 2 settlers and 1 worker in the beginning.

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I settled in place to found Rome that will now auto produce a settler every 20 turns. I moved the second settler southeast along the river. Our capital will be mighty, our second city not that great but I had to settle somewhere nearby else we delay all other stuff.
Finished worker houses there and then went for some MP warriors.

As we started with WC, this means that we can build the slavers hut. Rome completed that build which will be very powerful at the beginning.

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Hopefully we can snag some slaves with that and fight off the enemy.

Speaking off the enemy, the first AI turned up at the last turn and it's Siam which can produce nasty elephants later on.

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The situation at the end of my set. Our capital just cranked out a spear and a settler. We should build a few archers and spears to fight off the enemy that will surely come. Where do we send our settler to? It seems there is a coastline to the east which is safe but doesn't look that great. Note that to the north there seems to be mountains and units except for warriors and few others cannot cross those. If Siam is located beyond the mountains we are safe for now.

The wheel is due in 14 turns currently but that should go down (note that despotism has 80% research max). Once we get the wheel, we should build the royal stables (can only be built in the capital) for nice chariots. I suggest to research writing and literature after that before heading for our Roman super techs IW and construction.

Just as a side note, growth is not that important early on in CCM as we are restricted by happiness a lot. We don't lose any population either for settlers and workers. Rome now makes 7spt and can soon go up to 10spt I am certain. Milan is on a Roman symbol but we might change that if we fear the enemy.

I would wait for an enslaver to pop to take out that Siam warrior. maybe we can gain some slaves.

A last remark, due to the invisible units, it is wise to protect our own workforce soon with units too.

​

 

[ThERat]

The Team:
ThERat
CommandoBob - up
Northern Pike
M60A3TTS
Elephantium
vmxa

 

[Northern Pike]

We haven't declared war on Siam yet, so we'll need to do that before hitting Enter.

Rome needs its Roman Symbol, immediately after the archer build at latest, or even before if CB is feeling daring.

The question of where to send our new settler is difficult, as you suggest. The land seems to jut out into the sea a little farther NNE of Milan, allowing more room for a city placement without overlap, so I'd try that area. If the site seems completely unpromising we can just hold on to the settler until we have enough units to scout to the west.

 

[ThERat]

oh, I must have saved before declaring war, please do that straight away

 

[vmxa]

Mountains already, yuk. I hope it is not one those massive ranges running along to our west.

 

[CommandoBob]

Just downloaded the save; opened it fine.

Two ??s.

1) We have 6 units and can support 22 units for free. That seems high. Check the 'pedia. In Despotism the first 10 units have free support. Then each city or town gives 4 more in free suppport. We have two cities. Despotism and two cities is 18 units with free support, but F3 shows 22.

Does our settler "count" as a city for this?

2) What does that icon above the title bar for Rome represent (between the capital star and barracks icon)?

Initial Strategy Thoughts
With AI Enslavers roaming around, we need two units in each city for minimal defense. Our new settler will need an escort, no matter where it is going. So does our exposed worker.

I might be paranoid, but it seems like we should use the Archer build in Rome to protect our worker and then build a Roman Spear and Archer to move with the settler. Am I too cautious at this point in the game?

 

[vmxa]

The symbol is for money per the pedia as I had forgotten.

I think the system counts the CC of the captiol and then each town. That would be 10+ (4+4)+4 =22. Just a guess though.

 

[vmxa]

Just downloaded the save; opened it fine.

Initial Strategy Thoughts
With AI Enslavers roaming around, we need two units in each city for minimal defense. Our new settler will need an escort, no matter where it is going. So does our exposed worker.

I might be paranoid, but it seems like we should use the Archer build in Rome to protect our worker and then build a Roman Spear and Archer to move with the settler. Am I too cautious at this point in the game?

It has been a bit since I played, but I think we can take a few liberties this early. It will be later that I get worried, but then this is AW so feel free to sweat. We cannot afford to lose a settler as we are not able to pump one out at will.

Workers either, but we can get slaves so they are not as critical.

 

[Northern Pike]

Am I too cautious at this point in the game?

Probably. We started with Warrior Code and built Slaver's Hut as a very first priority, but most AI civs won't be in that position. I don't recall trouble with invisible units before 2000 BC, though Rat will have much more experience on that point.

And as a practical matter, if we play boldly now and some unlikely disaster strikes, we can just start another game with little lost work; whereas if we build an inadequate position through timidity, we could waste months of our time on a hopeless cause. The bigger the game, the more important it is to take our risks early.

So we really can't turtle until we have the theoretically desirable garrisons and escorts for everything. One unit to escort the settler, and a few more unprotected turns for the worker(s), should be all right; or if not, what happens happens. And please get both cities' Roman Symbols built, whatever the temptation to build units. Time lost on this while each turn represents decades can never be gained back later.

One thing you could do, when Milan produces a new worker--which I assume will be soon--is march the worker to Rome, so that it can stack with our first worker and we'll only need one covering force for both. Rome is so much more promising than Milan that it should probably have the services of both workers for now anyway.

Bear in mind that in this mod, workers road all types of terrain at the same flat rate. This will often influence our choice of tiles to road.

You make an interesting observation about our support levels. A lot of the math in CCM seems to be funny, in harmless ways. Perhaps Civinator will address the point if he visits this thread.

 

[LKendter]

watching -

I'm so "impressed" with 5 that this looks more interesting...

 

[ThERat]

I don't think we need to worry that early about enslavers. I agree with covering workers and settlers but it is fine to send out this settler with one support only.
Workers can now detect slaves which will make things easier too. But I agree that more spears won't harm us.

By the way, I think our capital can crank out royal stables and later the Great Library as it got great shield potential. There is another reason why I would like writing next as this tech enables us to employ scientists that give 4 beakers. Happiness will be an issue early in the game.

 

[CommandoBob]

Despotism
20% Tax
80% Science
00% Luxury

20 gold, +2 gpt

The Wheel in 14 turns.

City Builds

1. Rome (3) vArcher in 3, grows in 1.
2. Milan (2) Roman Symbol in 5, grows in 8.

No luxuries or resources connected.

01 Worker
03 Warrior
01 Settler
01 Roman Spear

Current Units: 06
Allowed Units: 22
Support Costs: 0 gpt

Compared to Indo-China (Despotism) we are Weak.


Plans
Declare war on Indo-China.

Next settler due in 20 turns.

The Wheel -> Writing (may happen this turnset).

Rome vArcher (20s) -> Roman Symbol (10s) -> vRoman Spear (20s) -> vArcher (20s).
Milan Roman Symbol (10s) -> Roman Spear (20s).
New City Roman Symbol (10s) -> Roman Spear (20s).

The vArcher from Rome will escort our settler eastwards to somewhere NE of Milan. Settling by the river would be great. A city on a river has no upper limit on growth. Otherwise, an aqueduct is needed to get past size 10.

Worker 2NW of Rome finishes the mine in 9 turns. We'll need to watch the Indo-China warrior, which is three tiles away from this worker.

New worker autogenerated in Milan heads to Rome to pair up with current worker on tasks.

 

[CommandoBob]

To Rat 40 - Introduction to CCM, where ThERat and others play and learn about the game.

To CCM - An introduction to a great mod, where ThERat plays a solo game to introduce CCM and explain how it is different from C3C.

To CCM (epic mod), where Civinator has unleashed this mod onto the C3C world.

To CCM Download Sector, where you can download the CCM mainfile and biq1.7.

 

[Northern Pike]

That basically sounds fine.

That archer is going to represent our attacking potential, such as it is , so I wouldn't send it to garrison what we hope will be a safe rear-area town. I'd send the spearman or even the warrior.

Don't accept a city location you otherwise dislike just to put the new town on a river. This is less important than in straight Civ, since by the time a town is at size ten, probably with slavery built, an aqueduct is a fairly quick project. Avoiding serious overlap with other cities, on the other hand, is much more important than in C3C AW (meaning, unfortunately, that there's no question of CxxC).